The Prisoner of Heaven (The Cemetery of Forgotten 3)

His name, his prestige, his reputation and his power were still going from strength to strength. There was just one piece missing: his person. After 1956 there were no photographs, no mention of his attendance nor any direct references to his participation in official functions.

The last cutting confirming Mauricio Valls’s presence was dated 2 November 1956, when he received an award for the year’s most distinguished achievements in publishing. The solemn ceremony, held in Madrid’s Círculo de Bellas Artes, was attended by the highest authorities and the cream of society. The text of the news report followed the usual, predictable lines of the genre, in other words a short item couched in flattering tones. The most interesting thing about it was the accompanying photograph, the last published picture of Valls, taken shortly before his sixtieth birthday. Elegantly dressed in a well-cut suit, he was smiling modestly as he received a standing ovation from the audience. Some of the usual crowd at that type of event appeared next to Valls and, behind him, slightly off-camera, their expression serious and impenetrable, stood two individuals ensconced behind dark glasses, dressed in black, who didn’t seem to be part of the ceremony. They looked severe and disconnected from the whole farce. Vigilant.

Nobody had photographed Don Mauricio or seen him in public after that night in the Círculo de Bellas Artes. However hard I tried, I didn’t find a single appearance. Tired of pursuing avenues that seemed to lead nowhere, I went back to the beginning and pieced his story together, until I got to know it as if it were my own. I sniffed his trail in the hope of finding a clue, some sign that might tell me where he was. Where was that man who smiled in photographs and paraded his vanity through endless pages with an entourage of flatterers, hungry for favours?

My hatred grew during those solitary afternoons in the old Ateneo library, where not so long ago I’d devoted my cares to nobler causes, like the smooth skin of my first impossible love, the blind Clara, or the mysteries of Julián Carax and his novel The Shadow of the Wind. The harder it became to follow Valls’s trail, the more I refused to admit that he had the right to disappear and erase his name from history. From my history. I needed to know what had happened to him. I needed to look him in the eye, even if it was just to remind him that someone, a single person in the entire universe, knew who he really was and what he had done.

8

One afternoon, tired of chasing ghosts, I cancelled my session at the newspaper library and went out for a stroll with Bea and Julián through a clean, sunny Barcelona I had almost forgotten. We walked from home to Ciudadela Park. I sat on a bench and watched Julián play with his mother on the lawn. As I gazed at them I reminded myself of Fermín’s words. A fortunate man, that was me, Daniel Sempere. A fortunate man who had allowed blind resentment to grow inside him until he felt sick at the very thought of himself.

I watched Julián devote himself to one of his grand passions: crawling about on all fours until he was filthy. Bea kept a close eye on him. Every now and then he would pause and turn towards me. Suddenly, a gust of air lifted Bea’s skirt and Julián burst out laughing. I clapped and Bea gave me a disapproving look. I searched my son’s eyes: soon, I thought, they’ll begin to look at me as if I were the wisest man in the world, the bearer of all answers. I decided never to mention the name of Mauricio Valls again or pursue his shadow.

Bea came over and sat down beside me. Julián crawled after her as far as the bench. When he reached my feet I picked him up and he set about cleaning his hands on the lapels of my jacket.

‘Just back from the dry cleaner’s,’ said Bea.

I shrugged, resigned. Bea leaned over and took my hand.

‘Nice legs,’ I said.

‘I don’t see what’s so amusing. Your son will pick that up from you. Thank goodness there was nobody around.’

‘There was a little old grandad hiding behind a newspaper over there. I think he’s collapsed with tachycardia.’

Julián decided that the word ‘tachycardia’ was the funniest thing he’d heard in his life and we spent a good part of the journey home singing ‘ta-chy-car-dia’ while Bea walked a few steps in front of us, fuming.

That night, 20 January, Bea put Julián to bed and then fell asleep on the sofa next to me, while I reread, for the third time, one of David Martín’s old novels. It was the copy Fermín had found during his months of exile, after his escape from the prison, and had kept all those years. I liked savouring every turn of phrase and dissecting the architecture of every sentence. I thought that if I could decode the music of his prose I might discover something about that man whom I’d never known and whom everyone assured me was not my father. But that night I couldn’t do it. Before reaching the end of a single paragraph, my thoughts would fly from the page and all I could see in front of me was that letter from Pablo Cascos Buendía, arranging to meet my wife the following day at the Ritz, at two o’clock in the afternoon.

At last I closed the book and gazed at Bea, sleeping by my side, sensing that she held a thousand times more secrets than David Martín’s stories about the sinister city of the damned. It was after midnight when Bea opened her eyes and caught me scrutinising her. She smiled at me, but a flicker of anxiety crossed her face.

‘What’s on your mind?’ she asked.

‘I was thinking about how lucky I am,’ I said.

Bea stared at me, unconvinced.

‘You say that as if you didn’t believe it.’

I stood up and put out a hand to her.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ I invited.

She took my hand and followed me down the corridor to the bedroom. I lay down on the bed and looked at her in silence.

‘You’ve been acting strangely, Daniel. What’s wrong? Have I said something?’

I shook my head and gave her a smile as innocent as a white lie. Bea slowly began to undress. When she removed her clothes she never turned round, or hid in the bathroom or behind a door, as the official marriage-guidance booklets advised. I watched her calmly, reading the lines of her body. Bea’s eyes were fixed on mine. She slipped on that nightdress I detested and got into bed, turning her back on me.

‘Goodnight,’ she said, her voice tense and, to someone who knew her well, annoyed.

‘Goodnight,’ I whispered.

Listening to her breathing I knew that it took her over half an hour to fall asleep, but in the end she was too exhausted to dwell on my peculiar behaviour. As I lay by her side, I wondered whether I should wake her to beg her forgiveness or simply kiss her. I did nothing. I remained there, motionless, gazing at the curve of her back and feeling that dark force inside me whispering that in a few hours Bea would go to meet her ex-fiancé and those lips and that skin would belong to another, as his corny letter seemed to insinuate.

When I awoke, Bea had left. I hadn’t managed to get to sleep until daybreak and when the church bells struck nine o’clock I woke up with a start and got dressed in the first clothes I found. Outside, a cold Monday awaited me, sprinkled with snowflakes that drifted in the air and settled on passers-by like glass spiders hanging from invisible threads. When I walked into the bookshop, my father was standing on the stool he climbed on to every morning to change the date on the calendar. 21 January.

‘Oversleeping is not acceptable when you’re over twelve,’ he said. ‘It was your turn to open up today.’